


damage ensued, tabloid news

by howlikeagod



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Pro-Bending, Republic City, Sort Of, Timeline Swap, but only like. 6 years or so, hit the family trees with the old uno reverse card, it's the gaang in the korra timeline and (implicitly) the korra krew in the atla timeline, same with the element cycle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23642611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howlikeagod/pseuds/howlikeagod
Summary: A teenage Avatar let loose on Republic City, a few pro-benders, and a world looking for a hero—but not the one you think.Aang, with a destiny as big as the sea and a dubious mastery of at least three elements, honest, sneaks out of Air Temple Island and into the lives of his neighbors across the bay, whether they like it or not. Hats are lost. Hearts are broken. Tea, somewhere, is made.
Relationships: (think like... book 1 level kataang), Aang/Katara (implied)
Comments: 77
Kudos: 194





	damage ensued, tabloid news

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I promise I am still hard at work on (life happens) wherever you are, but I wrote this in a fervor today after having this concept rattling around in my head for months.
> 
> Title from Dinner & Diatribes by Hozier. Thanks, Hozier Lyric Generator.

Republic City.

The skyline is as familiar as the arrows on his hands. The distant sounds of traffic and industry have echoed across the bay as long as Aang can remember. Standing under the buildings, many of them taller than the spire of Air Temple Island, he feels dizzy and small and so excited he could float away any second.

He won’t. Because that would blow his cover. But he _could._

Aang turns in place. His eyes aren’t wide enough to take everything in. He wants to see the whole city at once: the rooftops of metal towers that shine in the sun, the green expanse of parks, the suspension bridge spanning an inlet off the bay, the view of Avatar Korra’s statue from the other side.

He’s just in the middle of mapping a glider route between the six most notable landmarks on this side of town when a jet of water hits him square in the back and sends him flying.

Aang tumbles forward with barely enough presence of mind to think _Don’t airbend, don’t airbend!_ before he hits the pavement face-first. The moment he sits up and turns to look for whatever bowled him over, a truck twice the size of Appa barrels down the road. Right where Aang was standing.

“Sorry!” a voice calls from across the street. A girl in a long blue tunic looks both ways before rushing over to him. “Sorry, sorry! Are you okay? The truck was coming, and you were right in the middle of the road, and—Sorry.”

She hops onto the sidewalk where Aang landed and reaches a hand down, still fluttering apologetically. Dazed, he takes it. On the way to his feet, he catches her eyes in his and nearly topples over again.

Open and warm and blue as the tide pools on the far side of Air Temple Island where the star-anemones bask in the summer. Her long hair is pulled back, but a single strand of it tickles across her lips in the breeze. He shakes his head, realizing she’s still talking.

“—tourist season, but what did you think you were _doing?_ I’m Katara, by the way.”

“Oh,” he says, wanting to knock himself on the arrow for saying nothing but _Oh._ “Nice to meet you.” Stupid. “I’m—”

Her eyes float to his forehead, then go wide. A gasp cuts him off before he can finish the introduction.

“You’re the Avatar!” she exclaims. Right there, in the middle of the street.

“Uh.” Aang grabs her by the arm and swings them both into the nearest alley. The music shop to the left has a sign in the door that reads: CLOSED UNTIL WE OPEN AGAIN. “Yep! I’m Aang. But I’m kind of trying to keep a low profile, so—”

“I see.” Katara hides a laugh behind her hand and points subtly at his forehead. “Then you might want to cover up the arrow.”

Aang’s eyes roll up in their sockets as if trying to get a look at his own forehead. He slaps a hand against the short hair at the top of his head.

“My hat!”

In unison, Aang and Katara turn to look out the mouth of the alley. They crane their necks down the path of the truck that nearly flattened Aang, and there, lying dejectedly in the middle of the street, covered in the collected gunk of a Republic City delivery vehicle’s back left tire, is approximately two thirds of an old-fashioned pointed hat.

Aang groans.

Katara laughs again.

“Tell you what, you can borrow this.” She reaches into the bag slung over her shoulder, pulls out a strip of blue cloth—a scarf?—and hands it to Aang. “Tie it around your forehead.”

Aang takes it with a short bow. “Thanks. And thanks for, um, saving my life and everything. I owe you one.”

“Just don’t make a habit of standing in the middle of the road, and we’ll call it even.” She looks up at him and taps her chin thoughtfully. “Are you doing anything right now?”

“Oh!” Aang can feel his cheeks heating. Hair helps hide the fact that he tends to blush all the way up his scalp, but it does nothing for the rest of his face. “I mean, I was going to—Never mind.”

The flush takes on a new layer of humiliation as Aang realizes just how unprepared he’d been for this trip.

“What?” Katara asks, clearly startled by the way his face falls.

“I was going to get myself dinner,” he mumbles, “but I forgot to bring… money. Ugh. This is a disaster.”

He should just go back to Air Temple Island now. It’s only been a couple of hours. There’s a good chance no one has even noticed he’s missing.

Yeah, right. And maybe Grandma Jinora will tell him he’s ready to go into the Spirit World by himself. As if.

“Okay.” Katara nods as if this has settled a debate Aang didn’t know they were having. She links her arm with his and takes off down the street.

“Katara? Where are we going?” Her legs are a mile shorter than his, but she’s managing to drag him along like a poodlemonkey on a leash. It probably helps that she actually knows her way around.

“You’re new to the city, right?” she asks without even looking at him. They stop abruptly at an intersection, Katara’s hand in the middle of his chest as his legs and head try to keep moving forward. They wait for a passing motor scooter, and then they’re off again.

“Sort of,” he says. “I used to come when I was a kid, but I haven’t been here since I was eleven.”

Katara nods.

“So,” she says, “I’m going to need that back when we get where we’re going,” she points at the scarf around his head, “and since you’re not doing anything, how would you like to experience one of the finest cultural events Republic City has to offer _and_ get as many grilled mango skewers as you can eat, on the house?”

Aang’s stomach rumbles before _grilled mango skewers_ is even out of her mouth.

“Sounds great!”

Aang’s jaw hits the ground when he sees where Katara has been leading him. She pulls him through a side door labeled STAFF ONLY.

“You work at the Pro-bending Arena?” The lights aren’t shining into the sky the way they do before a match—it’s not even sunset yet—and the huge glass dome is dim, but Aang would know this building anywhere.

“Sort of,” Katara smirks. “Are you hungry now, or do you want to eat during the match?”

“The _match?”_ Aang isn’t exactly surprised by it; he knows where he is, obviously. But even listening to pro-bending on the radio is something he has to do in secret—or when dad’s not home. “I mean, of course! The match. The pro-bending match we’re here to watch. Um—”

His biggest hopes for this excursion into the city were to refresh his memories of the park, eat something disgustingly deep-fried off a shady food cart, and maybe buy a trinket small enough to hide in his pocket. Actually watching a pro-bending match? The idea hadn’t even crossed his mind, except idly.

Katara laughs. Aang laughs self-consciously with her. His stomach chimes in again.

“I’ll take that as an answer,” she says with a smile. Katara pushes open another door, this time leading into a stairwell.

“Yeah, I’m pretty hungry now.” He rubs the back of his head sheepishly. “I couldn’t take my glider into the city, so I had to swim here.”

“You swam all the way from Air Temple Island?” Her voice echoes off the close metal walls. She takes them down a set of stairs. The next door is labeled KITCHEN and STORAGE. The stairs fall away to at least one more lower level.

“It’s easier with waterbending,” he shrugs. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. You seem like an amazing waterbender.”

“I’m alright,” she says, glancing away.

“Come on, don’t sell yourself short!” Aang gets the door for Katara. She nods thanks as she ducks under his arm. “I mean, you knocked me right off my feet.”

“That’s my speciality.” She grins, sharp and dangerous but for the teasing glint in her eye. Aang laughs.

“I’ll try not to get on your bad side.”

“Smart,” she says approvingly. Aang’s stomach does a series of aerobatic loops.

Katara leads him through a dim hallway before elbowing open a swinging door. Aang is smacked in the face with a wall of smell and sound—meat and vegetables sizzling, oil bubbling, bean curd and lotus seed pastes being folded into dough—footsteps and voices overlapping _“Behind!”_ and _“Hot!”_ and _“Who keeps putting the knives in this drawer? I’m going to take that rolling pin and—”_

“Katara!” A man wearing an apron, so tall and broad Aang wonders if the double doors were installed just for him, greets from a station where he and a girl with a blue tenugui around her forehead are cutting fruits into long spiral shapes with an efficiency and precision that reminds Aang of his old firebending master.

“Hi, you two!” Katara sidles over and peers at their handiwork. “Beautiful as always.”

“Who’s the beanpole?” the girl asks, looking at Aang sharply from the corner of her eye. Aang puts on his most charming smile and waves.

“This is—” Katara glances over her shoulder, hesitating for the briefest second. Aang feels a spike of fear at how easy it would be for her to tell everyone the Avatar is here. “A friend of mine. He’s visiting the city.”

Aang lets out a silent sigh of relief.

“I thought I’d bring him to the match,” she continues, “but he hasn’t eaten _all day._ ”

“You mooching off our food is one thing, Katara,” the girl in the tenugui says. “I don’t know this guy from a badgermole’s brother.”

“Come on, Smellerbee,” says the tall man. “She just said he hasn’t eaten all day.”

“Thank you, Pipsqueak.” Katara nods graciously. Aang can’t stifle the laugh that sneaks out of him.

“Pipsqueak?” he asks, just to make sure he heard right.

Pipsqueak—apparently—doesn’t actually move from where he’s standing, but he seems to get bigger. He _looms._ Aang has always been jealous of people who can successfully loom.

“You think my name’s funny?”

“It’s hilarious,” Aang replies.

The kitchen hustle and bustle fades into the corners of the moment. Aang holds his breath. Pipsqueak keeps on looming.

He bursts into laughter, which booms through the kitchen and sets everything in motion again.

“I like this guy,” he declares, smacking Aang on the back. If it weren’t for the years of agonizingly slow earthbending training that finally taught him to keep his feet planted, Aang would have fallen onto his face for the second time today.

“Fine,” Smellerbee sighs as if no one in history has ever been so aggrieved. “If I say no, you’ll just steal them anyway.”

“That was _one time,_ ” Katara huffs. Smellerbee’s mouth quirks up in the shadow of a grin. She turns a whole peeled mango into a two-foot curlicue strip with one long sweep of her knife.

“Second batch should be coming out in a second.” She tilts her head toward the wide grill at the other end of the station, where a young man in a blue smock deftly turns identical mango slices onto their sides, revealing perfect grill marks.

“Thanks, Smellerbee.” Katara beckons Aang toward the grill. The man in the smock skewers ten curling mangos on ten sharp, wooden sticks in as many seconds. He silently hands two each to Katara and Aang. “Thanks, Longshot.”

She hands Aang one of her skewers. Aang is at least ninety-eight percent sure he’s in love.

“What’s your friend’s name?” Smellerbee asks. “Or should we just call him Beanpole?”

Aang freezes with his mouth wide open, teeth an inch from the perfectly-grilled orange fruit calling his name.

“Um,” says Katara.

“Just Bean is fine,” Aang laughs. “Or, uh. Kuzon.”

Aang briefly wonders how Kuzon is doing. He hasn’t heard from him since his last letter, celebrating getting into the university on Capital Island. It’s been over two years since Aang has been to the Fire Nation.

“Fire Nation,” Smellerbee scoffs. “Shoulda known. They’re all weirdos.”

“Should I be offended by that?” Aang starts to ask, but he’s cut off by Katara’s, “Hey! One of my—”

“Yeah, I know,” Smellerbee interrupts Katara with an actual, for-real smile. “Who do you think I meant?”

“Hmph.” Katara crosses her arms. Aang has known her for maybe an hour, so he’s no expert in reading her expressions, but Katara is a pretty open book and he would bet fifteen fruit tarts that she’s holding back a laugh.

“Speaking of,” Smellerbee says, “you better get upstairs. Also, no eating in the kitchen,” she snaps at Aang, teeth now a hair away from his tantalizing mango, “what’s the matter with you? Out!”

“Bye!” Katara yanks Aang through the doors. They swing behind him, the sounds of the kitchen rising and falling with each pass between open and shut. Katara practically runs, Aang’s wrist in her iron grip, back to the stairs.

“Are we in a hurry?” Aang snaps at his skewered mango like a bison with a carrot, just out of reach.

“I’m so late,” she laughs. “I didn’t even think about it. Toph’s going to kill me.”

“Is Toph your boss?”

“She _wishes,”_ Katara laughs again, sounding breathless as they hurtle up the stairs.

“Hey,” Aang gets an idea. He slows, stops in the middle of the staircase. Katara shoots him a confused look and tugs on his arm. “Which level do you need to get to?”

“All the way up at the top.” She points. Four levels above them, if Aang had to guess. He can’t see the doors from here.

He smiles. The stairwell is empty, the only other person here clocked him as the Avatar in the first five seconds of their meeting each other, and _not_ bending always feels a little like holding his breath. Aang hops onto the outside railing. Balanced perfectly next to the open gap that extends another fifteen feet to hard concrete, he holds out his mango skewers.

“Hold these for me?” he asks. Katara aims a suspicious look at the skewers, at Aang, and then back to the skewers. She takes them.

“Now what?”

“Now,” Aang wraps an arm around the back of Katara’s shoulders. She takes the hint, hooking her arm over his neck. He lifts her up. “Hold on tight.”

Aang aims himself like an arrow toward the ceiling. In a burst of air, he takes off.

Katara’s shriek echoes merrily off the hard angles of the metal shaft. Aang spins with the momentum of his little whirlwind, alighting on the railing across the gap a level higher only to bounce upward again.

Aang comes to rest in a crouch across from a door labeled EQUIPMENT and LOCKERS.

“This one?” he asks. Their faces are an inch apart. Aang can feel the heat coming off Katara’s cheek.

Katara smooths down her hair and glances over her shoulder at the door.

“Yep,” she coughs. Aang sets her down hurriedly. He climbs off the railing and takes the skewers when Katara hands them back.

“Thanks,” he says. He can feel his face turning red again. “Wait, you gave me both of yours, here—” He tries to hand her one back.

“No, no, you keep it,” she insists. “I’m not hungry.”

“Okay.” Aang stands there, two mango skewers in each hand, feeling too tall for his limbs in a way he hasn’t since right after his last growth spurt.

“Okay,” Katara replies.

“Um.”

“What is it?”

“Didn’t you have to...?” Aang gestures at the door with one skewer-laden hand.

“Oh!” Katara nods vigorously. “Right. Come in!”

She shoulders the door open. Another hallway and another door, and they’re there, apparently, because Katara is pushing it open and saying, “I know, I’m late, I’m sorry, I’m here.”

“Finally.” A girl about Aang’s age in a full green and yellow uniform minus the shoes sits sprawled on a bench along the wall, a green sash tied around her waist. “Is this the new guy?”

“What? Oh, I need this back,” she adds, pulling the scarf—not a scarf, a sash like the one the barefoot girl is wearing—off of Aang’s head. He juggles the skewers, which must be getting cold by now, he silently mourns, until he has a free hand. That hand flies to his forehead, but the girl in the corner doesn’t turn her head to look at him. “What are you talking about?”

“The _new guy._ Our substitute firebender?”

“Substitute—?” Aang drops the end of his question like it’s scalded him when he takes in the room fully.

Lockers, benches, uniform—and a huge open window with a railing, facing into the massive chamber of the Pro-Bending Arena. He is at the railing in a split second, leaning over it until it digs into his stomach. The realization lights up his eyes like fireworks.

“Somebody’s a little light on his feet,” the barefoot girl mutters. Aang doesn’t hear her.

“You guys are _pro-benders!”_ He runs a hand through his hair. He whoops into the empty arena, cackling when his own voice echoes back.

“Surprise,” Katara laughs nervously. “But seriously, Toph, I thought _you_ were finding someone to step in.”

“No, that was _your_ job,” Toph insists. She sits up straight and points at Aang. “And if he’s not a firebender, _who_ did you bring into our _locker room?”_

“About that—”

“You’re looking for a third teammate?” Aang asks, finally processing the conversation. “I’m—”

“Not now, Twinkletoes.” Toph waves a hand dismissively at him. “I’m sure you’re very proud to be one of ten airbenders in the world, but a pro-bending match needs a firebender.”

Aang turns so fast his feet leave the ground.

“I—Twinkle—Actually, there’s fifteen of—How did you know I’m an airbender?” He freezes, then slaps his own forehead, where the arrow previously hidden by Katara’s sash is peeking out.

Toph starts laughing. She waves a hand in front of her own face—Aang gets a good look at her eyes for the first time and thinks _Ah. Not the tattoos then._

“Your feet,” she says. “You basically floated across the room. Now listen, Katara, I am _not_ forfeiting this match to the Wild Hogmonkeys. I taught Haru everything he knows!”

“You didn’t teach Haru anything—”

“So you’re going to drop the airhead off with whatever bison you found him on and get back out there and _find me a firebender!_ We have an hour ‘til doors open, so let’s go!”

“But—” Aang says.

“Find _you_ a firebender?” Katara’s voice reaches a pitch Aang had previously thought only audible to lemurs. “Sorry, I didn’t realize this team was all about you!”

“Whatever.” Toph crosses her arms. “It’s _not_ about me, but since you obviously don’t care enough about our friend to help out when he’s—”

“That is _low,_ ” Katara hisses.

Aang looks between the two of them, uneasy with the crackling tension filling the room.

“Um,” he says. “I could do it.”

“I just _told you,_ ” Toph sighs exasperatedly. “We need—”

“I’m a firebender.”

“Nice try,” she drawls, before cocking her head and shifting one of her feet against the floor, eyebrows rising up her forehead like an incoming wave.

“No, no, you’re right,” Aang assures her. “I’m an airbender too.”

“Aang…” Katara says warningly.

“Wait.” Toph hops up from her seat, stomps across the floor, and grabs him by the front of the shirt. He nearly drops his mango skewers. “Aang? Your name is Aang?”

“Yep!” he squeaks.

Toph lets him go. She blinks silently, and then starts laughing so hard she topples backward onto the bench. Katara stares on, looking unimpressed.

“Oh, man,” Toph wheezes, clutching her stomach. “I gotta hand it to you, Katara, you’re thorough. You go out shopping for firebenders and pick up the _Avatar?_ Sparky’s gonna flip his lid when he gets back.”

“Who’s—”

“Our usual firebender,” Katara explains in an aside to Aang. “He’s doing a degree in history at Republic University, with an emphasis on Avatar Studies.”

“Avatar Studies?” Aang blinks. “I’ve never seen anyone _studying_ me.” That’s not quite true, but the Air Acolytes are so nice about it. He can’t get mad at them for wanting to help keep his culture alive.

“He studies past Avatars. Mostly Roku.”

“Nuh uh,” Toph chimes in, finally catching her breath. “His thesis is on Yangchen. Roku is a personal project.”

“His name is Sparky?”

“It’s a nickname,” Toph says.

“You mean it?” Katara asks eagerly. “You’ll be our firebender for the match tonight?”

“Sure! I love pro-bending. I thought I’d never get the chance to even see it, let alone help out the best team in the city.”

“Aw.” Katara looks away with a tiny smile blooming on her lips. “That’s sweet of you.”

“Eugh,” Toph gags dramatically from the corner.

“So,” Aang rubs a hand through his hair. “What’s your team called, again?”

_“Before we welcome our teams, a special announcement—”_

“Okay, Twinkletoes,” Toph mutters from somewhere around the height of Aang’s sternum. “You clear on the plan?”

“Got it,” Aang confirms. He tugs at the sleeve of the uniform. It’s a little short in the legs and a tad wide in the arms, but it fits well enough for one match. He’s grateful for the gloves and the way the helmet cuts across the forehead—no exposed arrows. “Let you two do the work, don’t slow you down.”

_“—solidarity with our brothers and sisters of the Fire Nation, a moment of silence—”_

“And you’re sure it’s okay you’ve been gone so long?” Katara asks.

“It’ll be fine.” It’s not a lie if he doesn’t actually know how true it is. “I’m the Avatar! What’s the worst that could happen?”

_“—beloved Fire Lord and ambassador for peace after his abdication, our hearts are with the royal family—”_

“Historically? I feel like our hotheaded friend would have an answer to that question,” Toph jokes.

“Citations and all,” Katara agrees. “Now _shh.”_

The arena goes quiet for a handful of seconds. Aang lowers his head in respect, heel of one open hand against the knuckles of the other closed fist tight against his chest. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Katara and even Toph do the same. Katara’s eyes look suspiciously damp when she lifts her head again—not that Aang is staring at her or anything.

_“And now, please give a warm welcome to the Wild Hogmonkeys!”_

On the other side of the platform, a trio in browns and reds waves to the cheering crowd.

_“And their opponents, fresh off a winning streak and on their way to the championship if they have anything to say about it—the Flying Boars!”_

Katara waves happily to the rows and rows of people screaming their hearts out. Toph raises both her fists, and the screaming increases exponentially. Aang lifts a hand. One extra little girl in the crowd starts cheering.

_“The Flying Boars have tapped in a replacement firebender this evening. Let’s see if he can match the ferocity of their classic flamethrowing heartthrob!”_

“I hate it when they call him that,” Katara mutters, disgust edging her voice.

“I bet he hates it more,” Toph laughs.

“You’re right,” Katara agrees, and the bell rings. The match begins.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! This fic is definitely going to take a backseat to my longer one at the moment, but I might prioritize coming back to it if people want to see more of this 'verse.


End file.
